Sonny Knight

Saturday, 17 June 2017

You may recall that we covered Sonny Knight & The Lakers at the Red Stag Block Party earlier in August 2014.John described the show as a dancing and religious experience…

Minneapolis-based soul singer, Sonny Knight, has died. He was 69.

We love the retro-soul sound of Knight and is deeply sad to hear about his passing. We’ve been writing about Knight since 2014, but the truth is, he’s been around for over 50 years: “The story goes, if you need a refresher ... Knight recorded his first single with band The Cymbals, in 1965 on New Teenage Records when he was just 17. A stint in the Army, some time spent in the Bay Area, a brief outing with local funk band Haze, and miscellaneous jobs followed, before local group The Valdons were resurrected in 2012 for the initial Secret Stash compilation album, then followed by The Lakers – an overnight success that only took 50 years.”

Earlier on 20 April 2017, we got a press release from their record label, Secret Stash Records, telling us that Sonny Knight was forced to cancel his May 2017 tour because cancer treatment (located in his lung, ribs, and spine). We’d heard a similar story before, when Sharon Jones postponed her tour due to cancer treatment. She was doing well for a while, even think she’s beat it... but ultimately, untimely, she died in November 2016.

With Maggie Rogers’ ‘Alaska’ song hitting Spotify’s Viral 50 in 40 countries and hit #1 in 23 countries (including the U.S.), it’s not hard to see why this 22-year-old multi-instrumentalist sold out her appearance at the upcoming Triple Rock Social Club show. In fact, she’s sold out her entire tour in the UK!

Rogers’ debut EP Now That The Light Is Fading is out now on Capitol Records.

Show up early to check out Overcoats. We’ve seen the duo twice now, and both times were completely different shows.

Newcomers Whitney (not to be confused with the late Whitney Houston) to open. Whitney is led by drummer/vocalist Julien Ehrlich, previously from Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
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Other shows in the area:

04/01/17 French multi-instrumental minimalist FKJ will be headlining the Cabooze in Minneapolis in support of his debut full-length, French Kiwi Juice. Dabeull and Cezaire to open.

04/01/17
Singer and actress Bridgit Mendler will be playing the 7th Street Entry with Powers. Mendler has been recently cast in the lead role in “Thin Ice”, a new Fox comedy pilot from “New Girl” creator Liz Meriwether.

04/01/17 Punk rockers Green Day to play Xcel Energy Center with Against Me! .

04/01/17 Comedian Iliza Shlesinger will make you laugh at the Skyway Theatre.

04/01/17 Soul revival band Sonny Knight & The Lakers to play Icehouse.

04/02/17 Foxygen to headline First Avenue. Gabriella Cohen will open.

04/02/17 London’s artist, poet, playwright, novelist, and rapper, Kate Tempest will headline the 7th Street Entry. We saw her in June 2015 and noted, “Beats were somewhat primitive and a hybrid of dancehall, grime, dub, and electro, but served only as the place-setting to Tempest’s machine gun narrative lyrics of truth-telling, anti-consumerism and conformity, desperate street people, and good intentions gone bad.” Tempest’ Let Them Eat Chaos is out now on Lex Records.

Friday, 09 December 2016

If country is not your thing, Helmet will be playing Mill City Nights on March 11th.
If you grew up in the 90s, you will recall their ever creepy music videos on MTV. For the 21st Anniversary of Betty, the band will be playing the entire album on this tour....

On the heels of releasing Local H’s As Good As Dead as a 180g for the record’s 20th anniversary... the old-school punk band will go on tour to remind us why the record was a breakthrough album for them.
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Helmet is back in Minneapolis, touring on their “Dead to the World” tour. The venue of choice this year is at the Fine Line, which doesn’t offer the best viewing experience (unless you pay extra for the balcony).

According to the press release, the new Dead to the World album is Helmet’s first record in six years, and it is available earlier in October via earMusic and Sony Music Entertainment Australia (for Australia).

Front man Page Hamilton’s comment about Dead to the World: “Catch phrases, punchlines, guns, bluster, ammo, incivility, impatience, murder. You, me, us, them, life, liberty and the pursuit of property... We disagree, we disrespect, discourse disappears in the age of access. When in doubt GET LOUD! It's my way or the highway, thank you Lawrence Tierney! Religious tchotchkes nailed to the walls of homes above razor-scarred mirrors. Do you meditate, levitate, pray? Live in LA! I'm a huge fan, got a perfume line, smell nice, plan my next move. Threats loom, the bad news network blooms, fear sells. Just get ‘em out, the spying neighbors, suspects, terrorists our forefathers intent. ‘If you don't like it, leave’ and call it democracy.”

Local H to open. The band recently celebrated their 20th anniversary of As Good As Dead, and was last seen in Minneapolis in June 2016.

Bastille's debut album, Bad Blood, is coming out in the U.S. on September 3rd from Virgin Records. Bastille also be promoting the U.S. release with a tour - making his television debut on "Conan" last week (July 24th).
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Immediately after New Politics left the stage, the legion of late teenagers left the front of the stage... to make way for BANKS fans to slowly inch their way to the front.
We've seen Banks before at First Avenue last year
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We’ve always been impressed with the Go 96.3’s shows, starting with their first in March 2015. Since then, the radio station created their first music festival called Go Fest, and starting last year, a new tradition of their Go 96.3’s Snow Show.

The 2016 Snow Show is back for the second year, this time at the Myth (originally scheduled at the Target Center).

This year’s headliner will be Bastille, who is currently on tour for his new album Wild World (Virgin / Universal).

Other guests on the bill: Banks (she was also on the first Go Show), Judah & The Lion, Coin and Miles The DJ.... PLUS one local band (to be determined by the Battle of the Band contest at the Fine Line tonight, December 9th).

We've been impressed with Judah & the Lion since we caught them in November 2014, writing “Many of their songs got their most dedicated fans to help sing along, especially on "Back's Against the Wall", where Akers stopped a second to hear his fans finish the lyrics... with the biggest grin on his face.”

Yeah we knew the tiny 7th Street Entry could not contain all the fans for Soul Asylum, or as we kid that it's just the Dave Pirner band....
Both dates at 7th Street Entry (12/17 and 12/18) are sold out
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Popular local fan-favorites Soul Asylum will be headlining First Avenue.

We caught the band when they were promoting their new album Change of Fortune (Entertainment One) and wrote, “The band has found a second life of sorts, with former Prince drummer Michael Bland joining in 2005 and bassist Winston Roye replacing Tommy Stinson and Justin Sharbono stepping in for longtime guitarist Dan Murphy, both in 2012. The band’s sound remains familiar under singer-guitarist Dave Pirner, a mix of 90’s-era alternative rock, power-pop, and indie post-punk.”

McNasty Brass Band will open.

Other shows in the area:

12/14/16 Country rock stars Supersuckers, with Jesse Dayton and Gallows Bound, to play the new Uptown VFW Post.

12/15/16 The Sunny Era, along with Tabah and The Sudden Lovelys, will be over at the 7th Street Entry.

12/16-12/17 Local soul
Sonny Knight & The Lakers (whom we just name-dropped with Sharon Jones on our recent podcast) will be playing a double night at the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant.

Every Wednesday, the city of Lindström in Minnesota (it’s about 45 miles north of Minneapolis), organized these “Harmony in the Park” events in Lions Park. The event is free and open to the public, with emphasis on family and fun.

Next Wednesday, our favorite local soul revival band Sonny Knight & the Lakers will be playing the “Health Fair” show.

You may recall that we covered Sonny Knight & The Lakers at the Red Stag Block Party earlier in August 2014.John described the show as a dancing and religious experience…

Minneapolis’ soul/funk revival band Sonny Knight and the Lakers recently played at the critically acclaimed music series The Lowertown Line for Twin Cities PBS. For the first time, the taping was broadcast live online and TPT 2 (Channel 2).

The newly built stage in downtown St. Paul was impressive... particularly the beautiful, bright, colorful lights.

In typical live broadcast for television or radio, the sold-out concert started promptly at exactly 8pm, and timed exactly to fit right under an hour, down to the show’s last note.

We’ve seen Sonny Knight & the Lakers a few times, and knew to expect a consistently high-energy soul and funk sound. Knight, dressed in a purple suit, danced and sweat and sang at the top of his lungs. The audience couldn’t help but move and participate with the songs.

The Secret Stash house band The Lakers (Guitar: Blair Krivanek; Bass: Nick Salisbury; Drums: Eric Foss; Organ: Sam Harvey-Carson; Tenor Sax: Cole Pulice; Trumpet: Riley Helgeson; Trombone: Tony Beaderstadt) was incredible, remembering that they are there to make Sonny Knight look good... although sometime the brass section can’t help but take the spotlight.

The recorded show will likely re-air on TPT sometime in the future, but expect to see some Sonny Knight & the Lakers clips online soon.

Lowertown Line’s next show is on May 12th and will feature Davina and The Vagabonds. The free show is sold out.

Sonny Knight and the Lakers at Lowertown Line, St Paul (14 April 2016)

Wednesday, 23 December 2015

The show was advertised as Gary Louris and Friends. For those that don't know Gary, he is one of the founding members of the Jayhawks. They have a new CD coming in September, which involves the reunion with Mark Olson. …

Start the year off funky! If you love the late Godfather of Soul and
"The Hardest Working Man in Show Business", James Brown, then you owe it to yourself to see this upcoming show featuring Sonny Knight and the Lakers and Fred Wesley and Jabo Starks.

If you're new to the great Sonny Knight, here's our written story about him:

The story goes, if you need a refresher, is that the 66 yr. old Knight recorded his first single with band The Cymbals, in 1965 on New Teenage Records when he was just 17. A stint in the Army, some time spent in the Bay Area, a brief outing with local funk band Haze, and miscellaneous jobs followed, before local group The Valdons were resurrected in 2012 for the initial Secret Stash compilation album, then followed by The Lakers – an overnight success that only took 50 years.

As for Fred Wesley, the American jazz and funk trombonist, is probably best known for his work with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s.
His album Let It Flow in 2010 was a tribute to funk master.

Jabo Starks is the drummer in The J.B.'s, who played with Brown and Wesley.

Last night was an amazing experience that I would not trade for anything. I would like to think I'm pretty open minded about music. Although I typically listen to metal and pop-punk, there was something
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This is local Meinong's Jungle album release show, for their debut LP Archetype. The recording is 10 improvised songs... expect similar treatment to their live set, which is totally improvised.

Here's how they describe the upcoming show:

Meinong's Jungle is proud to bring you their first full length release, "Archetype." A collection of 10 improvised tracks recorded at Hideaway Studio in NE Minneapolis. You can expect our set to be similar to the style of the album, but a completely different musical venture.

We are lucky to have support from:

Mumukshu - Psybeat head

Psydell - a young producer out of the Midwest, who is blurring the lines between psychedelic soundscapes and heavy hitting bass music. With so much time and consideration being put into the carefully sculpted sound, it brings an essence of intelligence while still delivering the highest energy. Over the past few years he has shared the stage with artists such as Tipper, Opiuo, Desert Dwellers, Mr. Bill, Papadosio, Haywyre, Spankalicious and many more. With the release of his first EP, Overview in Jan. of 2015, as well as numerous singles and remixes (one of which took first place in the Wildlight (Polish Ambassador) remix contest), this artist is pushing through the limitations of a single genre and propelling the weird bass scene forward, one drippy drop at a time.

Easyjack - a Producer/Bass Scientist/Multi-instrumentalist/Funktion One Tech from Chicago, IL

James Brown said, “Santa’s got a brand new bag…”
…and Minneapolis was left an early, funky Christmas present in the form of Sonny Knight and The Lakers
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The Secret Stash Records Revue just took place last Friday at First Avenue.

Black Market Brass

Although opening 12-piece Black Market Brass (mostly mostly an instrumental afrobeat band, but midway in their set, they had a guest singer O Tiyo Siyolo who came on to sing "Freedom") started their set twenty minutes later than advertised .... once the music started, it kept going with absolutely no break in music. This is incredible, as soon as BMB ended, the Secret Stash's house band, The Lakers stepped in to continue as the newly dubbed The Secret Stash Soul Orchestra (a combination of The Lakers and Black Market Brass).

With about twenty band members on stage, including a brass section and two dedicated go-go dancers, all playing and dancing on the same level - you can tell this whole thing was incredibly well-rehearsed and well-organized.

Wanda Davis

Everyone performing was having a great time, first with Sonny Knight singing "Caveman", then introduced Wanda Davis (who needed assistance coming on and off the stage) for "Take Care"... Davis then introduced PaviElle French, etc. By the time Maurice Jacox, and later, Cameron Kinghorn, this suddenly became a great variety soul music showcase. Everyone had their deserving moment in the spotlight.

The show started with Sonny Knight, who was clearly the crowd's favorite, and ended with Knight doing a medley of his hit songs, including "Juicy Lucy".

It's no secret, that we're big fans of Secret Stash Records. Their "Secret Stash Records Revue" show is coming up next Friday, July 31st. This will be a great way for us to close out the month of July with this incredible lineup.

Of course, all eyes will be on Sonny Knight and the Lakers as the main attraction and headliner. John thinks they are an unbelievably good live band... which would make sense that they recorded a live album called Do It Live (released last month on Secret Stash). The album was recorded the two night residency at the Dakota Jazz Club last December 2014.

Can you believe Civil Twilight's album Story of an Immigrant (Wind-up Records) landed #1 on Billboard’s Heatseeker and New Alternative album charts? All that time spent playing with The Gaslight Anthem, Cold War Kids and Lord Huron, and extra hard work is really paying off.

The band will be doing Summer tour, stopping by the Turf Club in St Paul next Friday in support of the new album.

You may recall that we covered Sonny Knight & The Lakers at the Red Stag Block Party earlier in August 2014.
John described the show as a dancing and religious experience
.…

James Brown said, “Santa’s got a brand new bag…”

Sonny Knight at Dakota Jazz Club (Sign)

…and Minneapolis was left an early, funky Christmas present in the form of Sonny Knight and The Lakers playing four shows over two nights at the Dakota Jazz Club, to record an upcoming live album.

The band was back in town after touring almost non-stop since the April debut of I’m Still Here (Secret Stash Records) and made plans to mix and record the shows live to tape, to capture the “lighting in a bottle” that has come to be quickly associated with Knight and The Lakers’ in-concert performances.

The story goes, if you need a refresher, is that the 66 yr. old Knight recorded his first single with band The Cymbals, in 1965 on New Teenage Records when he was just 17. A stint in the Army, some time spent in the Bay Area, a brief outing with local funk band Haze, and miscellaneous jobs followed, before local group The Valdons were resurrected in 2012 for the initial Secret Stash compilation album, then followed by The Lakers – an overnight success that only took 50 years.

Drummer Foss is the backbone of the band, as well as a co-founder of the label, and from what we saw at the first night’s late show, guitarist Krivanek was the unassuming secret weapon; standing almost stationery in the near shadows, but moving deftly from funky rhythm guitar to wailing blues riffs.

The group’s 75 min. late show set was well received by a mostly older crowd, that was most receptive to the band’s Dap Kings-like tip of the hat to the classic Stax and Atlantic Soul records of the 60’s and 70’s.

As has become tradition with soul revues, The Lakers began the evening with an introductory instrumental to get the party started, followed by Knight’s entrance for local hit, ‘Juicy Lucy’ followed by ‘Get Up and Dance’ with Knight announcing, “I need a lot of noise!”

Sonny Knight & the Lakers

The three piece horn section was clearly having a good time up front, with trumpeter Highhill often engaging Knight in call-and-response and the brass instruments moving up-and-down and side-to-side in unison. Tempo only slowed momentarily with the bluesy ‘In the Pines’, before being recharged with a driving and sped up organ-anchored cover of The Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper’.

“This is my ‘have-some-fun’ song”, Knight announced, getting loose again as guitarist Krivanek laid down a speedily strummed rhythm, accented by Harvey-Carson’s nimble organ playing. Not only socking it to the audience, Knight directing The Lakers had them “hit it” as many as 20 times, making people jump out of their seats in time to the beat as the Dakota was slowly transformed by the funk emanating into a backwoods juke joint.

Setlist

After the upbeat boogaloo of ‘Caveman’, complete with Knight grunting and shambling in character, the band left briefly before re-emerging for an instrumental number which then segued into Knight’s anthem of resilience and album’s title track, ‘I’m Still Here’ (instead of ‘Sugar Man’ as on the setlist).

‘Hey Girl’ ended the night triumphantly, with Knight pointing to females all over the club during the chorus and sax player Pulice getting a funky solo mid-song.

“Thank you for coming out—you made a big difference in our lives”, Knight said just before leaving the stage. As a funky early Christmas wish being granted, most in the club thought the feeling was mutual.

We've already discuss this at the latest podcast, and, yeah we knew the tiny 7th Street Entry could not contain all the fans for Soul Asylum, or as we kid that it's just the Dave Pirner band....

Both dates at 7th Street Entry (12/17 and 12/18) are sold out, and if you really wanted to see them - you may have to drive to St Cloud at the Red Carpet Nightclub (assuming that the upcoming show is also not sold out).

It's not listed on their website, yet, but some ticketing information are on ticketfly.com. The St Cloud show is a late show - doors at 9pm and opener The Odd Fathers starts at 10:30pm. 21+ and over and $20 will get you in the door.

You may recall that we covered Sonny Knight & The Lakers at the Red Stag Block Party earlier in August 2014.

John described the show as a dancing and religious experience, "The pace slowed a bit for ballad ‘When you’re Gone’ then quickly picked up again with ‘Caveman’, the imbibed crowd trying to keep up with Knight’s instructions on the dance, then the band returned for an earthy version of Sixto Rodriguez’ ‘Sugarman’ and lead single, from the album, ‘Hey Girl’, which had MC Tann and others dancing on stage, after which she declared, “that was a religious experience as far as I’m concerned!”."

Sonny Knight will be play at the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant this December 18th through December 19th.